An Update About Updates

That is, my various attempts at self-promotion and improving the blog. I have mostly been working on the design of my blog, and then fixing the screw ups that happened while I was working on the design of the blog. I changed up the theme, accidentally deleted and then re-added some features, and messed around a little bit with the layout and the second column.

WordPress is occasionally a pain in the neck when it comes to design. (At least for me, anyway.) However, I am now pretty happy with the current layout. I am slightly annoyed that certain features have been moved behind a paywall, so to speak since they’re on a paid tier. (And I don’t have the funds to pay it.)

(I have a Patreon. I don’t post very often on it, but I have one. I also have a tip jar. Both are linked in the sidebar. I would like to keep my dog in kibble and chewy bones. And hey, maybe I can post audio stuff, if I had the money. That would be kind of cool.)

I have been working on a number of posts for the blog, and poking at the Nanowrimo. Which is currently stalled. (Nanowrimo usually ends up being a kind of “write very quickly to get the ideas out, then get very stalled at some point, only to pick it up much later” thing for me.) I want to get back to Lord of the Black Mountain, while continuing to poke at the Nano-project.

I have written and posted a number meta essays! (Mostly Books of the Raksura.) I have been attempting to get my computer folders and portable drive more organized. This has mostly involved consolidating folders and deleting older files that I had no use for. I’m also trying to make sure I have back ups of my fan fic and eventually original fic, because much of it is on Evernote, and I’ve noticed that some of the older entries on Evernote get borked after a while, and it’s a pain in the neck to restore them.

I was very briefly on Nextdoor, which I do not recommend in any way, shape, or form. Nextdoor is a “hyper local” social media platform and should be avoided unless you want to find out how extremely horrible and toxic your neighbors are. I had to block five people within the three or so days I was on the app, at least two dudes seemed to think Nextdoor was a dating app, and another dude kept flaming my posts, and somehow was able to keep commenting despite having been blocked.

I did my usual “hello world” initial blog posts and made a few posts about what I tended to share on social media. (My blog stuff, my book reviews, my writing.) I was then informed that Nextdoor was not for book reviews or blog posts, no, it was only for reporting lost dogs, stolen property, and yard sales. (And possibly home businesses? I don’t know?)

I very quickly got tired of Nextdoor, and indeed, all of my neighbors on Nextdoor. (Nextdoor is starting to not look like a word.) I turned off all of my notifications for the account, deleted all of my posts and all of my profile information. I did not delete the account itself: sometimes you just want to hate read the posts of horrible, unpleasant people you have no sympathy or empathy for. (You can therefore magine my surprise to see that you can now link your blog to Nextdoor, though I can’t imagine why you’d want to.)

Later, I got a Bluesky invite and this seems to be going much better. No one being creepy in my posts, no rude comments, no flames. I have been posting some of my book reviews and articles. There were however some I had to redo, because Bluesky doesn’t seem to have an editing feature. It’s pretty much exactly like twitter, or at least is pretty similar. I am not quite sure how Bluesky “feeds” work, or how the tags work. (Just that it doesn’t seem to be the same way tumblr or mastodon has tagging.) Mastodon is also working pretty well, and Mastodon is connected to WordPress. Bluesky has not yet gotten connected,and I find this mildly frustrating as I am getting used using the “send to other platforms” thingie.

My social media platforms currently are: